Aquaponics - Strawberry towers MK 237 part 2

Stage two sees me with a stack of finished end caps with their various pipe work siliconed into place.

The ones with the two pipes are to be the horizontal NFT pipes.

I built an overflow pipe into my first NFT test pipe, and it's saved the day a few times.

I arranged the normal flow so it exits under water so I cant hear it, and the overflow so it splashes as a warning that the tube is blocked,

Never use a ruler when you can use a laser, and a ruler. My mum gave me this laser straight line tool, and It's a pretty handy thing to have. If your mum hasn't given you one of these, you can place your pipe next to a door frame or something else you think might be straight, and draw a line down the length of your pipe by holding your pen flat against the frame.

If your hole cutter is anything like my new one, (my old $7 hole cutting set dissolved in a spectacular "it's a good thing I always wear safety glasses" kind of way), it will be impossible to remove the circle of PVC that will be left behind in the cutter. But I have a tip...

A hole cutter has a small drill in the centre, and then a large round bit with a saw edge. Drill through until you have the beginnings of a circle cut into your PVC, then withdraw the cutter a bit and waggle your drill around so that the guide hole is enlarged. You no longer need the guide hole because you now have the larger circle, so it wont matter. It's the guide hole that the circle offcut of plastic seems to get stuck on. After discovering this they all fell out without any help.

Lastly I drilled some holes in my gutter to take the tubes exiting the bottom of my strawberry towers.

My finished, but as yet un-siliconed tower components look like this.

Getting there.

I cut 5 holes in each 900mm long tube. The top hole is 100mm from the top to allow a litle space between the plant and the grow house roof, and the bottom hole is 150mm up from the bottom to keep the roots out of the drain holes.

I'm not sure how the drain bit is going to go, because I have no idea how long the roots are going to be.